I am interrupting my previously scheduled column on issues of great weight and importance for a commuting parent’s lament.

I know that some New York City parents are grumbling about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to keep the schools open during last week’s snowstorm. I’ve read and chuckled at the tabloid headlines about the schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, who famously described Thursday as “a beautiful day” while people were trudging through sleet and slush. (My personal favorite: “Let them eat snow!” from The New York Post.)

But I am writing to tell you that I’m not sympathetic. Not in the least.

As I type these words, my two boys are home from school on their seventh snow day of the winter. At one point this month, we had two snow days in one week. (My husband and I were barely sane that week. We are barely sane today.)

It is not that we suburban, working parents want to put our children in harm’s way. We don’t want them slipping and sliding on the sidewalks or stranded on school buses stuck in snowdrifts.

But before you second-guess the mayor on his handling of this year’s snowstorms, please consider the alternative. Ask yourself: How would you juggle work and children on the fourth, fifth or sixth snow day of the school year?

On Friday, which was the seventh snow day in Montclair, N.J., I tried to ask Karen Cahn, a digital executive and mother of two who lives there and works in Manhattan, but she could only say, “It’s total chaos here,” before she had to hang up.

Deb Ryan, an executive recruiter in Southport, Conn., said she managed to shuttle her two sons to her parents’ house on a couple of snow days, but had to handle one day at home, solo. Trying to work while her boys were roughhousing and pleading with her to play wasn’t pretty.

“It was horrible,” she said, adding that predictions of snowfall now make her “cringe, absolutely cringe.”

Mary Alice Carter, a divorced mother of two who lives in Maplewood, N.J., said that she has thrown her screen time rules out the window.

“I’m still sort of saying, ‘Sure, two movies today because I have two conference calls,’” said Ms. Carter, a communications director for a nonprofit organization, who managed to split child care duties on one snow day with her ex-husband. (He worked in the morning; she worked in the afternoon.)

She said that her school district has had about four snow days so far. Or maybe five. (Please forgive us, dear readers, for being imprecise: These snow days are beginning to blur.)

By now, we all know the drill. First, there’s the sinking feeling that comes with that early morning or late evening email from the school district. Then there’s that tense conversation between couples about who will go to the office and who will try to work while watching the children.

Then there is the juggle: The alternating rounds of snow shoveling and work calls, board games and report writing, countless children’s movies and annotating that last legal brief.

Desperate to get my column written, I asked myself on snow day No. 6: Is it O.K. to insist that the babysitter venture out into 12 inches or so of snow when the county has banned buses from the roads? (Probably not.)

Can I persuade my parents to drive over from Staten Island to entertain the boys while I huddle over my laptop? (Wait: The lower deck of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is closed in both directions. Nix that thought.)

I write this with something of a lighthearted tone — though I did not feel at all lighthearted when I received the dreaded email from the Montclair school district on Friday morning — but it is, in fact, serious business. The stakes could not be higher for parents who do not have the luxury of flexible schedules or telecommuting.

I often write about low-wage workers, and on snow days many are forced to choose between staying at home and losing a day’s pay or possibly losing a job. Then there are the parents of disabled children, who struggle to cope when their sons and daughters miss out on the specialized therapies and instruction that are essential to their well-being and their routines.

Susan Weber-Stoger, a demographer at Queens College, says that about 871,000 people commute to the Big Apple for work, mostly from New Jersey, Connecticut, Westchester County and Long Island. We are your colleagues, your deskmates, your conference call buddies, and many of us have school-age children and far too many snow days this winter.

So forgive us, New York City, for cheering Mr. de Blasio on.

Email: swarns@nytimes.com
Twitter: @rachelswarns

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: For Parents Juggling Work, a Snow Day Is No Holiday. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe